Well, I'd personally pick the anime version, just because it's less likely to spark an actual political debate. (No offense folks, but I find that generally the more I know of a person's politics, the less and less that I like them.) However, if we do do a political game, may I suggest the following?

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Revenge of the Also-Rans!

Oh noes! Tragedy! At the Presidential debates due to an intern's misplaced decision to place an order from "Bob's House of Past The Expiration Date Shrimp", the Presidential candidates have been laid low! And the candidates' interns probably shouldn't have boxed up the leftovers and sent them to the Vice Presidential candidates either.

As a result, practically every person who has ever run for President and lost has decided that now is the perfect time to make a run for the Presidency! But beware! The main political parties are trying to take out these newcomers! After all, one of the Vice Presidential candidates groaned the other day. And the other party claims that their candidate blinked once or twice! He'll be fine by inauguration day!

Rules: 1) Pick a someone who ran for either the presidency or vice presidency and lost as your avatar. Please choose either a fictional candidate or a candidate who ran more than 10 years ago. (People as less likely to get worked up about Henry Clay than they are about John Kerry.)

2) Instead of being killed, candidates are simply eliminated from the race. Fictional or not, it might be unwise to be talking about bumping off presidential candidates, especially at this time of year. I think Mike and crew would prefer not having the Secret Service drop by...

3) The roles? The Donkeys and Elephants are our Mafia families. Informants are now "Spin Doctors" and Vigilantes... er, let's call them Liddies, I guess. You could probably pick better names than that.

Whaddya think?

I'm Thom_Serveaux, and I approve of this idea. (if it wins the final vote) With the minor tweak being that the Vigilantes shall for this game shall henceforth be known and referred to as 'Pundits'.

Furthermore, all this week, my ISP/modem has been extraordinarily flaky of late. Sometimes cutting me off from internet access for hours at a time. therefore I am requesting any and all interested parties to apply as co-GM if they are so inclined. That way there will hopefully be as little disruption as possible.

I think Compound would make a good co-GM for this bout. He did a great job with the rules for Presidential Fell-Just-Short-ers Mafia, after all. Again, I'm sitting out until I get my school's workload organized, so me taking on the co-GM would be a very poor lapse of judgment.

3) The roles? The Donkeys and Elephants are our Mafia families. Informants are now "Spin Doctors" and Vigilantes... er, let's call them Liddies, I guess. You could probably pick better names than that.

Unless Thom decides to do this when he announces "deaths":

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Dim of the Yard has been eliminated from the campaign. She was a Spin Doctor (Informant).

... Then I would suggest changing the name "Spin Doctor." I'm assuming that this game has normal rules, but this would help to cut down the confusion regarding the roles of the Informant and the question of whether or not the Doctor will be making an appearance in this game.

Again, you don't have to change it. Just a suggestion. If you do decide to change the name, though, my suggestions are "Proponents of Spin" and "Talking Points."

Edit: And this is all, of course, assuming "Presidential Race" wins the bout for Mafia. Forgot to mention that in the original post. Oops.